June 10th? Seriously?

It’s June 10th.  I can’t believe it’s already June 10th.  There’s nothing especially special about the date or anything, it just seems like all of a sudden it’s summer and not spring, and my exams are closer to being over than they are to having started, and also, my due date is in less than two months.  So there’s that.

My little sister is making her super long car trip with my parents over to Louhelen today, which reminded me that five years ago today, I was making the same trip, in the same car.  But back then, I had no idea that in just a couple of months, I’d be meeting the man I’d get to have a big ol’ crush on, fall in love with, marry, and quickly get started on a family with.  I was totally ignorant to how happy I was going to end up being, or how exciting (at times) and boring (at other times) and always really lovely our future was going to be.  I’m actually slightly secretly (well, not so secretly anymore, I guess) hoping the baby will be born on the five-year anniversary of when we met (August 11th) just because I’m a sucker for things like that.

In other, not as sentimental, news, my written exam went well.  As I explained last time, Denmark has a 12-scale grading system, which goes from -03 to 12 (-03, 00, 02(first passing grade), 04, 07, 10, and 12) and I had to get tens in both sections to go on to the university-prep level Danish class.  I got a 10 in the writing section, and a 12 in the reading-comprehension, and to be honest, I was slightly disappointed that I didn’t get a 12 in writing, because I’m that kind of nerd who was afraid of getting a four, but was secretly hoping for a 12 anyway.  But the point is that I passed with scores good enough to go on, so as long as I do well next Monday in my oral exam, I’ll be all set!

I’ve been working on my presentation, but got sick (again!) yesterday, which led to napping and not working on my presentation.  I’m back at it again, doing innumerable practice runs, and sneezing every few sentences, which throws my timing all off (it has to be two minutes long).  I’m also suffering from a constant layer of anxiety that won’t go away until next Monday at around 2 pm when I’m DONE.

The oral exam goes like this: Part One: student gives a two-minute monologue on a pre-assigned topic (mine is Crafting in Denmark- Tradition and Renewal, which sounds really boring, but was a gem in my eyes!).  Then three minutes are devoted for the examiner to ask student questions about said topic.  Part Two: Student randomly draws one of three topics (we don’t know what they are ahead of time) and is then given a couple of pictures that relate to the topic, which they have to then describe.  Then they spend the next four minutes answering questions about the topic.

It could go smoothly enough, and I’m obviously really hoping it does, but honestly I’m really freaked out about the second part, mostly.  It’s just so up to chance, and after looking at sample topics from previous years’ exams, I’m afraid of getting something like “crime and punishment in Denmark” or “surveillance” which I really don’t know how to talk about in English, let alone Danish.  So if anyone remembers, cross your fingers for me next Monday.

Anyway, the rest of June is pretty full, event-wise.  We have a non-baptism baptism to go to (basically just a baby-party, and who doesn’t like a baby-party?!), my test, Baha’i events, and in the two free-ish weekends, we have to start getting stuff ready for the baby because I can sense a panic attack right around the corner if we don’t “get on” that soon.  I think I’m beginning to feel the pressure after a recent growth spurt.  Andreas and I both felt like I stayed about the same size for a good month and a half, but we knew that a change was just around the corner, and boy were we right.  When I saw the photos from this week’s “belly picture,” I was pretty taken aback.  We don’t have any full-length mirrors in the apartment, and my view from “up above” is quite skewed, so I hadn’t realized I’d gotten quite this big:

Now that’s a lot of belly.  Two months to go!  Hopefully I get a bit of a break before the next growth spurt, because this guy’s getting heavy to cart around.

 

Spontaneity

Andreas and I recently met a couple who have two children (around ages 3 years and 4 months or so).  It was like being a dry sponge and soaking up having-a-baby advice, and it was great!  One of the things the man advised us to do was to cut down on really any activities outside the home, because that’s what it was going to be like.

Unfortunately, I seem to be doing the opposite…

Although that’s not hard to understand, as my former list of extra-curricular activities was limited to: go see my sister-in-law and her baby every once in a while.

But today after Danish class, a couple of the girls and I decided to go for some ice cream!  One of them ended up not being able to come, but the other girl and I still went.  We bought some ice cream from a place just off of Kongens Nytorv, then walked down Strøget while we ate, stopping at H&M to get a maternity tank top (did I mention it was hot today?) and then, after she caught her train at Nørreport Station, I decided to walk a little further.  And a little further.  And a little further…until I ended up walking the whole way home!  It was no heroic feat (it took about an hour) but unfortunately, I ended up with a blister on the bottom of my foot, which I didn’t notice until I’d already gotten home (otherwise, I’d have just taken the bus).

Andreas also had badminton on Wednesday, and just as I was starting to make dinner, he called and said he and his colleagues were going out for Thai food, and did I want to come meet him there?  I recently made a goal to change my reflex of saying “no thanks” when people ask me if I want to do something/have something etc. so, keeping that in mind, I said “sure!” and immediately left and hopped on a bus to join them.  I was, of course, a bit shy and nervous, but it was lovely to do something spontaneously.  Actually, the loveliest part about it was probably that, since I didn’t know I was going to go, I didn’t have to spend all day worrying about it!

These two little events give me a bit of hope that I will someday have what seems like a pretty normal (un-lonely) life here in Copenhagen.  Andreas and I have also decided to try out a board-game meetup group, which I’m excited about!  It’s international, so I’m guessing my Danish won’t get much of a workout, but I’m really excited to meet some new people and to play some games again!!  I love Settlers of Catan as much as the next person (okay, probably a lot more than the “next person”) but I’d love to try some new ones, or go back to some old favorites that I haven’t played since college.  I think it would also be really nice to have something “extra-curricular”-y to do with Andreas!

We recently talked about how we’ve been feeling a bit “meh” on weekends lately.  It’s nice to relax, and stay home for the most part, but we’ve fallen into a rut of “what should we do: Read out loud together, watch something on Netflix, or just be on our computers?”  So we’ve decided to make at least one “plan” every weekend.  It doesn’t have to be going out, necessarily, but has to be something that we do together, without our focus on something else (for example: the tv).  This weekend, we’re already heading off to a picnic tomorrow with some other Baha’is, and then to Sweden on Sunday (I get to meet with my old knitting group, and we’ll visit my sister-in-law!), and next weekend, we plan to make donuts!  We’re also going to see if we can coerce another sister-in-law of mine to come with her husband and help us eat them, but as they’re normal people, they might already be busy on the weekend.  Regardless, I’m already excited (I’ve been wanting to make homemade donuts again for ages, you guys) and really happy with how Andreas and I decided together to fix our “meh” problem.

Tomorrow is June 1st!  Let’s see if I can start this photo-a-day thing up again!

Catching Up (and a plea for your opinions at the end)

Life here seems to be settling into some sort of a routine.  On Mondays, we go to a Ruhi study circle.

*Sidenote* I started this blog post thinking I could get it done real quick before I went to sleep, but upon searching for a link for the Ruhi institute, I came across a Baha’i joke blog where I consequently spent more time than I had assumed writing this whole blog would take.  Oops.

Anyway, like I said we’re getting into a bit of a routine.  Wednesdays, I have my Danish class, so we have some sort of a salad for supper (lately it’s been Tuna Macaroni Slaw because it always reminds me of home).  Fridays, Andreas usually has badminton after work (how cute is that?!), and weekends have becoming less stressful, too!

We even managed to buy a TV last weekend, and although we live in a dead zone, so we can’t get any real channels, it came with Netflix and wi-fi, so it’s been really great to have a nice big screen to watch our movies on (as compared to my little laptop with the worst speakers ever).

My Danish class is still going well.  It’s still challenging, and even though my first assignment came back with a discouraging amount of red ink on it, I managed to not be too discouraged after all.  I have to keep reminding myself that I’ve never, ever learned this stuff (it’s review for most of the people in my class) and all I need is practice, practice, practice.  I’m already starting to get nervous for the Big Test coming up in May/June (the one I’m postponing my visit to the US for) but I’m trying to forget about it as much as possible.  I wouldn’t be nervous, but I have to get a B-equivalent to be able to move on to the next class which is preparation for the other Big Danish Test that I have to pass to get into university here.  I was told that if I pass, but don’t get a high enough score, I can retake it, but that I won’t be offered any more classes to prepare for the re-take and that I’ll have to pay for it myself (around $200-250) so I’m feeling a bit of pressure.  However, I’m trying to remind myself that I still have time to get better before May, and if my teacher at that point really doesn’t think I can do it, I can always back out and wait until November.  When I have a baby.  That sounds like a better time to take a Very Important Test, right?

Things have just been being good in general lately, and I’m trying to remember to be really grateful.  The Baha’i Fast is in full swing now, and although I obviously can’t fast because of my “delicate condition,”  I’m still getting up pre-dawn every day to make Andreas and myself a bowl of oatmeal and to say some prayers.  While I can’t physically fast, I’m trying to pay extra special attention to things I want to work on, and one of those is gratitude.  I actually think that I do very well with this normally.  All the work and waiting and stress that we had to go through to get to this point (married, settled (in Denmark), with a nice apartment and a baby on the way) makes a person really appreciate what they have.  But, I want to get better at remembering to be grateful when I go through my periodic bouts of the blues, when I get homesick, when I suddenly feel lonely and like I have no friends left, or when I run out of ice cream.

I’m also happy about being able to meet some of the Baha’is in Copenhagen.  This is becoming a little bit of a Baha’i-(and link-)heavy post, but bear with me!  It has been quite lonely here, and as probably most foreigners who have moved to Denmark can tell you, it’s not easy to make friends here.  Well, in my opinion, it’s not particularly easy to make friends anywhere, but especially when you don’t go to school or have a full-time job, the meeting-people thing is hard to do.  I’m really glad that the community has been so welcoming and I’ve met people that I feel genuinely connected to right away!  It’s exciting, and since a lot of the Baha’i community tends to be a bit international, I think there are a lot of sympathetic souls ready and waiting to lend an understanding ear.

So things aren’t particularly easy at the moment.  We’re still stressed about some things, I’m still a bit lonely, but I’m doing really well and I’m really happy about where we are.

Oh!  But one last thing…

We have our second (and probably last) ultrasound coming up next Friday.  The thing is, this is the one where one can normally tell if the baby is of the boy or girl persuasion.  We’re having the hardest time deciding whether or not to find out now, or to wait until it actually makes its entrance into the world.

I originally thought I would never find out, that it’s more exciting, and makes it easier to buy gender-neutral clothing, etc.  But the closer we get to the ultrasound, the more tempting it is to find out.  We’re also having a lot of trouble finding any boy-name possibilities we love, so we’d kind of like to be spared the trouble if it’s not even a boy after all (although I have a pretty good feeling that it is), and we’re going to mostly be using hand-me-downs as far as clothing goes, so we would be able to know ahead of time from whom we should borrow.

Thoughts?  Pros?  Cons?

I think we might end up flipping a coin…

Running Again (with an extra sports bra this time around)

So back in the summer/fall, I did some posts on my running!  The program I was on worked really well for me, and I was really happy with the results.  Finally, I loved running!

But then…it was November.  And it was cold.  And we moved (to an area I didn’t know).  And I stopped.  And then I found out I was pregnant.  Now, part of my reason for starting running this summer, was to get into the habit so I could just…continue on during pregnancy and stay fit!  But the habit was already stalled, and I was sick and more tired than I imagined.  I was not going to brave the Copenhagen cold and run.  No way.  Forget that.

Lately, I’ve begun feeling a bit better.  The nausea subsided, the tiredness…well…occasionally that’s better, too, and I started venturing off the couch to actually do some things.  And then, of course, I got a bad cold and retreated back to my corner of the couch.  But I couldn’t get running out of my head.  It was so ingrained in there, I started to have dreams about running.  I would run, and run, and I would feel great.  I woke up and I’d think, “I really miss running.”

So at my first midwife appointment, I asked her advice on whether or not it would be a good idea for me to start up again, and I got the green light.  Basically, she told me to folow my instincts.  If anything felt “wrong” or heavy or uncomfortable, I should take it easy.  So a week later, and almost completely recovered from my cold, I decided to try it.

Two sports bras and a slice of clementine later and I was…..gagging over the kitchen garbage.  It was not a good clementine.  But I rallied, ate an apple, pulled on my shoes and went out.  What I didn’t realize was that it had also snowed two or three inches overnight, which doesn’t make for the best running conditions, but I went on, and once I got to the park (about a 20-minute walk) the snow wasn’t melting on the paths, and I felt I had enough traction to start running!  And it felt good!

I made sure to take it really slow, and only run in about 3-minute spurts between walking, but I’m really glad I did.  I feel like I know now that I can, and while I might not run as much as I used to, it’s still an option, and I want to keep going until it gets too difficult.  It makes me really optimistic about the next few months, and I’m really looking forward to the weather improving, although if I’m being realistic that will probably coincide with getting too big and/or uncomfortable to go out running much.  I’m hoping, however, that once it gets a bit warmer, I can convince Andreas to come on long walks in the park with me.  I’ve never been very good at getting him to, but maybe with puppy dog eyes and a baby belly, I will be more convincing!

Overall, it was a great day so far, and I am really excited about how smoothly everything went!  I’d forgotten how good it feels to be out, and it didn’t hurt that the little baby bump was pretty noticeable under my running kit.  Today I really felt that “we” were going out there, and so even though the running was slow and easy, today felt like a big deal.

Some Catching Up

Since I’ve been holding off blogging until I could spill my beans, there’s a lot I haven’t posted about here!  The biggest thing was probably when I went touristing Copenhagen, and spent the weekend in Stockholm.  A friend of mine is studying in Germany for a semester, and since he’s always been crazy about Scandinavia, he came up for a visit!

We planned this visit back in October/November.  I found out I was pregnant just after Thanksgiving, and a few weeks later realized I was going to be acting a tourist in the midst of my first trimester.  The day my friend’s flight was scheduled to arrive, I was probably the sickest I’d been.  I spent the morning hovering around the toilet until I had to leave.  Fortunately, the fresh air seems to calm me down a bit.  Unfortunately, the fresh air was also January air which was really, really cold.  The next few days, we spent exploring Copenhagen, a lot of it on foot.  I know my friend must have severely edited his list of things he wanted to see and do whilst in Copenhagen because I just couldn’t do it all, but even though we didn’t do everything it was still far too much for me.  Three days of traipsing around Copenhagen, and it was Friday night.  We were due to leave for Stockholm in a couple of hours and if my husband hadn’t been coming with us, I think I would’ve lost it.  I was exhausted.  I didn’t want to walk another step.  I didn’t want to wrap my scarf around my whole face anymore.  I didn’t want to see anything.  I wanted to curl up in a ball in my bed and SLEEP.

Stockholm was alright, but I was ridiculously exhausted.  We saw Gamlastan, which was very quaint and cute, and probably my favorite part of the trip.  However, Stockholm was even colder than Copenhagen.  The streets were icy, the wind was cutting, and I couldn’t wait to turn around and head back to the hostel when it got dark (which was, luckily for me, right around 3 or 4 pm).  The second day in Stockholm, I was so hormonally grumpy and tired that I didn’t want to do a single thing.  If it was up to me, we would have gone to the mall, and just sat for the six hours between checking out of our hostel and boarding the train back to Copenhagen.  Luckily, the boys took charge, and we ended up getting a tour of parliament (because it was free and warm in there) which was another highlight of the trip!  It felt like a field trip, and I’d really missed learning about things in that way.

The train ride back to Denmark was also surprisingly good!  We three were sitting in a little group of four seats.  On the way there, we’d had the “compartment” to ourselves, but this time a young woman around our age filled the last seat.  It turned out she was from Germany, and was extremely prone to motion sickness.  The train had poblems and delays (and kept switching direction), and for some reason, Andreas and I also got motion-sick.  I’m pretty sure mine was related to the fact that I was nauseous in general.  Anyway, we all talked and laughed together, which was a great distraction from the fact that we were holding plastic bags at the ready.  It was a good ending to the trip, being able to sit, relax, and get to know someone new!

However, I think that I’ve learned to not plan trips while pregnant.  To be fair, I wasn’t even pregnant during the planning, but in the future, I think I’ll even be more aware about planning trips if I’m thinking about maybe trying for a baby.  Even writing this little summary of a blog post about the trip and thinking about how it was has made me exhausted, but I’ll end with a couple of pictures I managed to get without frostbiting my fingers!

 

 

 

Christmas!

Christmas is around the corner, guys, and I’m excited.  I honestly don’t think I’ve been this excited for Christmas since I had the Christmas Concert to look forward to in elementary school.  This probably has something to do with the way that the Danes approach Christmas.

Now, we don’t have a TV (haha, I like saying that in a hoity-toity voice in my head, but really, we don’t have a TV because we didn’t buy one yet.) so I haven’t seen any of the Christmas commercials, and we haven’t really been to any mall or shopping area, so I haven’t really noticed that aspect of Christmas (the buying lots of things aspect).  But as far as I’ve noticed during previous Christmases in Denmark, it’s not all-consuming like it can be in the states.  They don’t have crazy ridiculous sales (which is a slight bummer for a couple trying to furnish and decorate their apartment at Copenhagen prices), or anything akin to Black Friday.

There’s also not a big religious debate about neutralizing Christmas and calling it The Holidays or calling it Christmas and leaving out a bunch of other traditions.  Basically, Christmas here is a time for the famous Danish “hygge.”  A time to put candles in the windows, decorate with white, sparkly, and red things, and huddle up with warm drinks and people you love as you watch the sun set at 2 pm.  I like that.  I have always been drawn towards Christmas, but felt like I couldn’t really celebrate because we weren’t even Christian.  Here, it doesn’t matter.  Most people don’t follow a religion, but Christmas is still a big deal.  It’s very much a cultural holiday now, and one I am definitely willing to participate in.  Once I get me some candlesticks and red yarn…

One for the Blog

Today, I did something.

I took the level placement test for my Danish classes!  I don’t think I’ll start until early January (if they even have room for me then) but I’m on the road!  I’m applied and everything!  Unfortunately, I can’t tell you how I did because the tester didn’t, and I was too scared to ask.  Scared that either 1) they wouldn’t tell me or 2) they would, and I would be disappointed.  So I guess it’ll just have to be a surprise when I get called in to start classes!  She said I was pretty good, so I’m not particularly worried about starting at the bottom, so I’m okay with the “surprise factor” for now.  I’ll just try not to think about it too much and get my curiosity a-stirring.

But that’s not really the part I wanted to talk about.

i was really nervous about this.  Like, really super belly-dropping nervous.  Of course I was nervous to be “evaluated” and to have to talk to a stranger in Danish (while being nervous) but mostly I was nervous about the journey there.  I’m a big fan of public transport, don’t get me wrong, but I’m still not comfortable using it here in Copenhagen.  I decided on a route last night that would take me onto two busses I’ve ridden before, and I figured that was that.  I would be golden!

Well, I got on the first bus just fine, using my handy-dandy blue-spot travel card.  You can use this all over Denmark and just have to check in and out on the blue spots when you start and end a trip.  Anyway, the first bus and the bus transfer went surprisingly well.  I was able to find where the other bus stopped and it came and I got on it and everything!  But things went downhill from there.  Apparently there has been some sort of adjustment to the route and it went to a certain station and just…..turned around.  And started going back.  And I started panicking!  I asked the bus driver if he didn’t stop at the stop that I needed, and he just said “No, I turned around.” So I got off at the next possible stop (a good three quarters of a mile from where I had to be in 9 minutes!).  So, I hesitated for a second realizing that I could have just stayed on the bus, and gone home and done it again tomorrow OR I could make a run for it.

Good thing I started running this summer because otherwise I don’t think I would’ve made it!  As it was, I made it with 2 minutes to spare and was shown into the room with four or five other women, completely breathless and red in the face.  Whoohoo!

Putting Things Together

So as I said, over the weekend, we started putting together our IKEA things.  We’re still far from finished with all of it, but we did manage to get the sofa together, which is really the most important thing.  One of the worst moments in moving is when, after lifting heavy things and losing small things, you look around for a place to collapse for half a moment, and there are none, so you have to sit down on a box and hope it’s filled with sturdy, non-fragile things.  So, in an effort to avoid that moment, we put together the couch first.  It was a good decision.

That color of cover was on clearance, so although it’s not the nicest color, we can always buy a nicer one when we have a bit more cash on hand.  We were extremely glad we started with the couch because it went really smoothly and easily.  The bed that followed was a lot more complicated, and my thumb still hurts from those dang allen wrenches.  If we’d started with that, we’d have gone home long before the couch was finished, and wouldn’t have anything to collapse onto in times of moving distress!

Yesterday, we moved basically everything we have to the new place, so while we wait for it to have internet access, we’re basically staying in our apartment in Sweden as overnight guests.  It’s nice to be on the home stretch, and although we don’t have much food here, we’ll work it out.  I’m just excited to go back and do more organizing/cleaning/setting-up work!

An American Hermit Crab in Denmark in Denmark

So today’s writing prompt was about tweaking your title and tagline.  The funny thing is, that I’ve been thinking about doing that for about eight months.  See, I’ve been living in Sweden, waiting out visa issues, so I thought I should change my blog title to An American Hermit Crab in Sweden, but I felt like that was giving up.  After all, Sweden was just this in-betweeny phase that was supposed to be over with rather quickly.  The longer I lived in Sweden, the more guilty I felt about my blog title.  Voices would hiss in my ear every time I opened up the page “you’re not reeeeeeeeally in Denmark.” 

I guess I should explain that the title actually is a line in a poem I wrote that’s part of a collection.  It’s partly almost-literal, in that I feel often that I’m carrying my home around with me (though in the form of a green suitcase, not a shell painted to look like a soccer ball), but also in that I feel like I carry America on my back everywhere I go.  I am American and though I might give up my citizenship in the future, I’ll always be from America and sometimes that feels like a lot to carry around.  I carry around the judgements people make about Americans, the stereotypes, and feel responsible to every move America makes.  I feel more American than I ever had to while I was actually living there.

So the title is really quite symbolic, and not literal (much to the dismay of the many, many people who are led to my blog through google searches about hermit crab care).

But it’s funny, the day that I’m invited to change my blog title is the very day that I don’t feel like I should any longer.  That’s right.  Guess who’s moving to Denmark!  We signed the lease for an apartment today and can start moving in…well basically today.  I feel like I’m on the verge of something huge, and I’m so excited.  We’re starting to plan our moving-in, when we can do what things, and where and when we can buy which things, and who can help us.  Tomorrow is going to be List-Making Friday.  Let the organized craziness begin!

I’m so, so excited to be moving, and even more excited because our apartment is fantastic.  Like, super great.  Pictures to come.

Oh, also, with all this moving-and-decorating-and-finally-making-a-place-our-own, I think I’m beginning to understand pinterest.  This could be dangerous.

Emporia! (and apartment-hunting)

So today we trekked across the Øresund again to check out another apartment.  This one was in a nice area, close to a train station, but pretty far from Andreas’s workplace, and the apartment itself wasn’t great.  Actually it was pretty bad, so we didn’t take it.  I think that with work, it would be a good place to live (de-carpeting, bathroom overhaul, etc.)  but since it was too small to start a family in, it wasn’t worth putting in the work and leaving soon afterwards, so the search continues.  On the way back home, we stopped off at the new mall, Emporia!  It’s apparently the biggest mall in Scandinavia now.  It just opened a week and a half ago, but it was still mega-jammed in there.  I don’t think we actually even went into any stores…

Anyway, the design is pretty neat, and like any devoted blogger, I definitely forgot my camera at home, so you’ll have to trust me on that one.  It’s divided into color sections with colored escalators etc.  so that was pretty cool.  We spent most of the time just exploring, walking along the super-crowded halls and spent forever getting a bit of food in the food court.  We couldn’t find a table in the “food court” area, but managed to find an empty bench after meandering a bit more and heading home.  It’s no Mall of America, but I think once the crowds have thinned out a bit, it will be a nice place to wander and shop, if that’s your thing.  We wanted to go before we move to Denmark, and are glad we did, but probably won’t be back.

Now we’re resting our weary legs before having leftovers for dinner and getting cozy with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.